September 27, 2022
From the Russo brothers to the Coen brothers, Hollywood has a long tradition of siblings working together in the film industry. Adam and Aaron Nee are just one of the the latest brotherly filmmaking duo to emerge on the scene with the recent blockbuster The Lost City starring Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum. But before they started creating studio blockbusters, these directors got their start by making low budget, independent films like The Last Romantic and Band of Robbers.
Band of Robbers is the last feature film directed by Adam and Aaron Nee in 2015. It reimagines the iconic characters from the Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn novels as adults in the modern era. Band of Robbers was the second film the Nee Brothers directed and it managed to snag an impressive cast that included Stephen Lang. So, who are Aaron and Adam Nee? Here’s what you need to know.
Aaron and Adam Nee are brothers who grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana. They have created films since childhood and created their first feature film in 2006 with The Last Romantic. The film was made for less than $20,000 in New York City.
Similarly to Band of Robbers, the brothers wrote, directed, and Adam starred in The Last Romantic as the main character. The unique quality to this brotherly duo is that each brother specializes in a different area of filmmaking.
Adam is very familiar acting as talent in front of the camera while Aaron is familiar being the cinematographer behind the camera. The Lost City directors moved to LA in 2006 where they began their new journey as The Nee Brothers.
Aaron Nee, the older brother, is far more comfortable working in the technical side of filmmaking than on the other side of the camera. After high school, Aaron attended the University of Central Florida to study film.
He learned how to use film equipment to make movies and used some of the equipment to create The Last Romantic. Aaron also met his wife, Ann Marie Nee, at the UCF film school and she helped out on The Last Romantic as well.
Adam Nee, the younger brother by about 3 years, went straight to New York to pursue acting in the industry. He got many roles in various projects like Law and Order, Dawson’s Creek, Sex and the City, Mentor, etc.
Through his experiences in New York, Adam got to know the ins and outs of the industry which later helped him while filming The Last Romantic. The actors in the film were actors he had met during his time in NYC and the locations were places that he was familiar with. Adam was formerly married to actress Allison Miller until 2019.
Adam and Aaron were first introduced to Mark Twain’s writings when their father read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn to them at the ages of 6 and 9. Adam first came up with the concept for Band of Robbers while auditioning for a film version of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when he was 21 years old. He was laughed out of the audition, but the notion of an adult Huckleberry Finn piqued his attention and he ran with it to create Band of Robbers.
“The thing about childhood fantasy is that it becomes difficult as you’re becoming an adult to figure out what of these things do I get to hold onto and what of them do I have to let go? This is such a great piece of material to do that because of who the characters are already and because of the nostalgia we already associate with that material and childhood and childhood fantasies.” – Aaron Nee
Band of Robbers is about petty criminal Huckleberry Finn who hopes to leave his criminal life behind when he is released from a stint in prison, but his lifelong friend, and corrupt cop, Tom Sawyer, has other plans.
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